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Lot Essay
'... trees are a constant of my work. They are not a subject but much more, they are the substance itself of my work, like using clay for a sculpture that embodies the image of clay itself. The plasticity, the fluidity, of the tree in its growth makes it more like clay, a material that lends itself to being shaped, modelled. Its structure encloses a quite extraordinary architectural logic, and what's more this logic is memorised in the wood year after year. I feel an endless sense of wonder when I observe a tree'.
G. Penone, quoted in Giuseppe Penone: Sculture di linfa, exh.cat., Venice, 2007, p. 214.
Albero di 7 metri was created in 1999 and belongs to Giuseppe Penone's most recognised and celebrated group of works, in which he has stripped back wood from a piece of commercial timber, revealing the appearance of the tree within. Each whorl in the surface of the beam is revealed as a cross-section of a branch that was protruding from the form of the young tree. These have been exposed as the layers of subsequent growth have been painstakingly removed. In this work, Penone has split the beam into two sections which stand alongside each other, each one reaching three and a half metres into the air, recalling the verticality of the tree from which they derived. The sculpture's two component parts tower above the viewer, recreating a tiny spectral section of the type of copse from which the original larch tree would have been taken. Penone's Alberi are lyrical works which, with deft and elegant simplicity, serve to introduce complex ideas about nature, resources and human experience. It is perhaps for this reason that examples of Penone's Alberi are in prominent museum collections throughout the world including Tate, London and the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. They have also featured in many of the surveys of Penone's works since their inception.
For Penone, trees are one of the most important motifs, and for this reason have recurred in a number of ways in his oeuvre. For Penone, the tree is a sculpture that has been created by nature itself. In looking at the wood contained within this piece of timber, Penone is encouraging the viewer to see the tree as it was before it was cut down, as a chronicle of its own life. Just as humans are often seen as the summations of their experiences, so the various rings and formations in the wood in Albero di 7 metri form a sort of chronicle of the life of this tree in particular. Penone has stripped some of the wood back in order to reveal the appearance of the tree at a specific age, a number of years ago. This form has been fossilised within the ever-growing tree and allows us to glean an impressive amount of information. As Penone has explained:
'I modelled the form of the tree through its growth, which generated those successive forms that led me to seek the form of the tree within the wood, by going back in time and retracing the path of its growth. A tree grows as concentric rings, so if you carve into it and follow a growth ring you rediscover its form at a given age. You rediscover a part of its existence, of its life; the arrangement of the branches shows us which side was exposed to the sun and which was in the shade. It is like travelling back through the sequences of a film, frame after frame. Little by little you discover the history of the tree enclosed and memorised in the wood' (Penone, quoted in Giuseppe Penone: Sculture di linfa, exh.cat., Venice, 2007, p. 214).
By seeking out the appearance of this tree within the wooden beam that he has used in Albero di 7 metri, Penone has proved the truth of his observation that, 'In the tree trunks of a growing forest we see wooden objects enclosed in the forms of trees' (Penone, G. Maraniello (ed.), Giuseppe Penone: Writings 1968-2008, exh.cat., Bologna, 2008, p. 116). This allows the viewer to experience an epiphany: the humble wooden objects around us take on a new form when we consider their own growth over the years. Penone has evocatively spoken of '... the forests, alleys, woods, gardens, parks, orchards with their trees enclosed in doors, tables, floors, floorboards, beams, ships, carts...' (Penone, ibid., p. 116). In Albero di 7 metri, Penone has emphasised this point by splitting the beam but leaving the two ends intact, highlighting the tree's later incarnation as a wooden beam of the sort used in, say, construction. By halving the wood, Penone allows the works to stand up independently, but it also means that while one section tapers, as is natural, while reaching for the ceiling or the sky, the other is inverted, appearing absurd because it is reaching upside down towards the ground. In this way, Penone is drawing the attention of the viewer to the arbitrary way in which wood exists in the world around us, no longer following the orientations that had come into existence through nature's influence.
This unveiling of the former shape of the tree serves as a parallel to the way that experience is etched upon people too. Our skin functions like bark, or like the rings of a tree, charting our own history, the various elements with which we have come into contact during our lives. While our skin changes, the tree preserves these earlier memories within it. The 'exterior' of the tree which Penone has revealed in the interior of this wooden beam was itself created through exposure to a range of experiences, such as sunlight, wind and access to water.
Penone has discussed the process that he pioneered in revealing this 'was-tree' at the heart of the wood in works such as Albero di 7 metri:
'Technically, to give it back the appearance of a tree at a specific moment of its plant life, I first must establish where the top is, where the bottom is. I can determine this based on the growth rings, which correspond to the two layers always traceable in the wood, one denser one softer. The base coincides with the hard, broader layer. From there I begin to dig and it suffices for me to continue scrupulously, following this harder layer, to recover the form of the tree. At this point I not only obtain a form, but I also have retraced the entire growth phenomenon, up to the moment when the hand of man, or who knows, an event in nature, arrested it' (Penone, G. Maraniello (ed.), Giuseppe Penone: Writings 1968-2008, exh.cat., Bologna, 2008, p. 92).
G. Penone, quoted in Giuseppe Penone: Sculture di linfa, exh.cat., Venice, 2007, p. 214.
Albero di 7 metri was created in 1999 and belongs to Giuseppe Penone's most recognised and celebrated group of works, in which he has stripped back wood from a piece of commercial timber, revealing the appearance of the tree within. Each whorl in the surface of the beam is revealed as a cross-section of a branch that was protruding from the form of the young tree. These have been exposed as the layers of subsequent growth have been painstakingly removed. In this work, Penone has split the beam into two sections which stand alongside each other, each one reaching three and a half metres into the air, recalling the verticality of the tree from which they derived. The sculpture's two component parts tower above the viewer, recreating a tiny spectral section of the type of copse from which the original larch tree would have been taken. Penone's Alberi are lyrical works which, with deft and elegant simplicity, serve to introduce complex ideas about nature, resources and human experience. It is perhaps for this reason that examples of Penone's Alberi are in prominent museum collections throughout the world including Tate, London and the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. They have also featured in many of the surveys of Penone's works since their inception.
For Penone, trees are one of the most important motifs, and for this reason have recurred in a number of ways in his oeuvre. For Penone, the tree is a sculpture that has been created by nature itself. In looking at the wood contained within this piece of timber, Penone is encouraging the viewer to see the tree as it was before it was cut down, as a chronicle of its own life. Just as humans are often seen as the summations of their experiences, so the various rings and formations in the wood in Albero di 7 metri form a sort of chronicle of the life of this tree in particular. Penone has stripped some of the wood back in order to reveal the appearance of the tree at a specific age, a number of years ago. This form has been fossilised within the ever-growing tree and allows us to glean an impressive amount of information. As Penone has explained:
'I modelled the form of the tree through its growth, which generated those successive forms that led me to seek the form of the tree within the wood, by going back in time and retracing the path of its growth. A tree grows as concentric rings, so if you carve into it and follow a growth ring you rediscover its form at a given age. You rediscover a part of its existence, of its life; the arrangement of the branches shows us which side was exposed to the sun and which was in the shade. It is like travelling back through the sequences of a film, frame after frame. Little by little you discover the history of the tree enclosed and memorised in the wood' (Penone, quoted in Giuseppe Penone: Sculture di linfa, exh.cat., Venice, 2007, p. 214).
By seeking out the appearance of this tree within the wooden beam that he has used in Albero di 7 metri, Penone has proved the truth of his observation that, 'In the tree trunks of a growing forest we see wooden objects enclosed in the forms of trees' (Penone, G. Maraniello (ed.), Giuseppe Penone: Writings 1968-2008, exh.cat., Bologna, 2008, p. 116). This allows the viewer to experience an epiphany: the humble wooden objects around us take on a new form when we consider their own growth over the years. Penone has evocatively spoken of '... the forests, alleys, woods, gardens, parks, orchards with their trees enclosed in doors, tables, floors, floorboards, beams, ships, carts...' (Penone, ibid., p. 116). In Albero di 7 metri, Penone has emphasised this point by splitting the beam but leaving the two ends intact, highlighting the tree's later incarnation as a wooden beam of the sort used in, say, construction. By halving the wood, Penone allows the works to stand up independently, but it also means that while one section tapers, as is natural, while reaching for the ceiling or the sky, the other is inverted, appearing absurd because it is reaching upside down towards the ground. In this way, Penone is drawing the attention of the viewer to the arbitrary way in which wood exists in the world around us, no longer following the orientations that had come into existence through nature's influence.
This unveiling of the former shape of the tree serves as a parallel to the way that experience is etched upon people too. Our skin functions like bark, or like the rings of a tree, charting our own history, the various elements with which we have come into contact during our lives. While our skin changes, the tree preserves these earlier memories within it. The 'exterior' of the tree which Penone has revealed in the interior of this wooden beam was itself created through exposure to a range of experiences, such as sunlight, wind and access to water.
Penone has discussed the process that he pioneered in revealing this 'was-tree' at the heart of the wood in works such as Albero di 7 metri:
'Technically, to give it back the appearance of a tree at a specific moment of its plant life, I first must establish where the top is, where the bottom is. I can determine this based on the growth rings, which correspond to the two layers always traceable in the wood, one denser one softer. The base coincides with the hard, broader layer. From there I begin to dig and it suffices for me to continue scrupulously, following this harder layer, to recover the form of the tree. At this point I not only obtain a form, but I also have retraced the entire growth phenomenon, up to the moment when the hand of man, or who knows, an event in nature, arrested it' (Penone, G. Maraniello (ed.), Giuseppe Penone: Writings 1968-2008, exh.cat., Bologna, 2008, p. 92).